Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about R. A. Lafferty
R. A. Lafferty Quotes
75 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
In this growing there are no really new things or new situation. There are only things growing out right, or things growing out deformed or shriveled. There is nothing new about railways or foundries or lathes or steel furnaces. They also are green-growing things. There is nothing new about organizations of men or of money. All these growing things are good, if they grow towards the final answers that were given in the beginning.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
To you who are scattered and broken, gather again and mend. Rebuild always, and again I say rebuild. Renew the face of the earth. It is a loved face, but now it is covered with the webs of tired spiders.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
They were down on Kentron-Kosmon, an insignificant world. And yet, in the middle of Space-Port there (a cow pasture rather; it wasn't much of a spaceport) there was a nice plaque of electrum and on it was lettered: This is the Exact Center of the Universe.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
This myth filter was necessary. The ship logs could not tell it rightly nor could any flatfooted prose. And the deeds were too bright to be viewed direct. They could only be sung by a bard gone blind from viewing suns that were suns.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the same category. Listen to me: the opposite of radical is superficial, the opposite of liberal is stingy; the opposite of conservative is destructive. Thus I will describe myself as a radical conservative liberal; but certain of the tainted red fish will swear that there can be no such fish as that. Beware of those who use words to mean their opposites. At the same time have pity on them, for usually this trick is their only stock in trade.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
Death is for a long time. Those of shallow thought say that it is forever. There is, at least, a long night of it. There is the forgetfulness and the loss of identity. The spirit, even as the body, is unstrung and burst and scattered. One goes down to death, and it leaves a mark on one forever.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
This petty place cannot be Hell, Roadstrum? Ah, but it is my friend. That, you see, is the hell of it.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
"I'm doing pretty good. I'm a seminal genius, they say, and I have the most sophisticated tools ever devised to work with. And I do build some good things for them. I'm quite successful. I'll tell you something, though. In the daytime, with all those sophisticated tools, and particularly if someone's watching me, I just stall around. But at night — "
"Ah, at night! What do you do then, Hondstarfer?"
"Put away those damned sophisticated tools and get my stone hammers. That's when I build the good stuff. Don't give me away, though, Roadstrum.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
"Do not be deceived by the way men of bad faith misuse words and names," the Black Pope was saying, and now his head was quite powdered with snow. "It used to be only the English who excelled in the deception of words. Then the French went even beyond them, and now the whole world is adept at it."
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
These men were the salt of the skies, the one out of ten who had determinedly stayed alive through the whole war, very often hurt, absolutely refusing to be killed.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
The place itself, and ne'er a good word spoke of it,
You shiver when you even make a joke of it. Though some go cocky, gaily in hand-basket there,
The most fare sadly in a clammy casket there… Undying pain and gaping loss, no doubt of it.
A wide way leading in and no way out of it! But none have told the blackest horror shrouded there —
Tall teeming terror‚ but it sure is crowded there.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
There are skies we have not seen yet! There are whole realms still unvisited by us. We will not be penned in even a giant's pen. We fly!
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
There are no rules. We do whatever seems the most fun.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
Every science is made up entirely of anomalies rearranged to fit.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
Listen now to a series of sayings that always come hard to brave people. Our own great movement will grow with its own impetus wherever it is not blighted. We will break up persons of blight and centers of blight. But often, and this will be the hard part for all of you to understand, we will warn and advise before we kill. And quite often we will not kill at all. Try to understand this.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
His soaring vaunt escaped the blooming ears of us,
He's gone, he's dead, he's dirt, he disappears from us! Be this the death of highest thrust of human all?
The flaming end of bright and shining crewmen all? Destroyed? His road is run? It's but a bend of it;
Make no mistake, this only seems
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
Brannagan had been to more places than Finnegan had, including the same places. He had not only skirted the d'Entre-Casteau Islands, he had walked all over them. He had not only sailed through China Straits, he had dived in them for old wrecks. He had not only climbed the Cloudy Mountains, but had panned gold in their streams and dips.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
Paul, there is something very slack about a future that will take a biting satire for a vapid dream.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
Beware of those who manufacture final answers as they go along, of those who will catch you on their catch-phrases and let you perish in the traps. All the final answers were given in the beginning. They stand shining, above and beyond us, but they are always there to be seen. They may be too bright for us, they may be too clear for us. Well then, we must clarify our own eyes. Our task is to grow out until we reach them.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
"I am mistress of all the sciences. I go so far beyond all else that my work is called magic. I manipulate noumena, regarding monads as points of entry tangential to hylomorphism. As to the paradox of Primary Essence being contained in Quiddity, the larger in the smaller, I have my own solution. The difficulty is always in not confusing Contingency with Accidence. Do you understand me?"
"Sure. You're a witch."
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
It was their way of defying that tricky place Earth. That place will hurt you if you let it get the hop on you. They spooked the Earth spooks away with their stories. They whistled in the dark.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
"Here there are warlocks and mandragoras and witches," the navigation data log issued.
"When your machines start to go droll on you you're in trouble," Roadstrum growled. "I can get wise answers from my men. I don't need a machine for that."
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
There are only two possible statements that can be made about the worlds," the Black Pope of the Carlist Hills had lectured one day. "Alpha: There is a God. Omega: there is not a God. To adhere to either of these two statements strongly is to be logical at least. Not to do so is to be in the snivelling wasteland between and to have no point of contact with logic or reason.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
I'll break the spell or the science of her singing yet. As the only man left it devolves on me to do it.
R. A. Lafferty
Source
Report...
Man-a-bleeding, but they broke out of that place! You say it can't be done, but they did it. Their expectations had been too high, and no second-rate Hell could hold them.
In a way it was their greatest feat. No one else had ever broken out of there before.
R. A. Lafferty
1
2
3
Quote of the day
About one-fifth of the people are against everything all the time.
Robert F. Kennedy
R. A. Lafferty
Born:
November 7, 1914
Died:
March 18, 2002
(aged 87)
Bio:
Raphael Aloysius Lafferty was an American science fiction and fantasy writer known for his original use of language, metaphor, and narrative structure, as well as for his etymological wit.
Known for:
Nine Hundred Grandmothers (1970)
Fourth Mansions (1969)
Space Chantey (1968)
Past Master (1968)
The Reefs of Earth (1968)
Most used words:
men
roadstrum
place
time
dead
earth
serious
understand
hold
high
people
hell
growing
stories
poor
R. A. Lafferty on Wikipedia
R. A. Lafferty works on Gutenberg Project
Suggest an edit or a new quote
R. A. Lafferty Quotes
R. A. Lafferty Short Quotes
American Novelist Quotes
Novelist Quotes
20th-century Novelist Quotes
Related People
Gene Wolfe
American Novelist
Robert Silverberg
American Editor
Theodore Sturgeon
American Novelist
Fritz Leiber
American Novelist
Frederik Pohl
American Editor
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes